Ermou Street has long been the most fashionable shopping street in the capital, very long and starting very smartly in the heart of town leading directly off Constitution Square (Syntagma) opposite the Parliament building, and ending shabbily but fascinating somewhere out near the Ceramics Museum. Halfway along Ermou the small and wonderfully preserved Byzantine church of Kapnikareas stands, in its own tiny square. This is one of the best preserved Byzantine structures in the capital and dates from the 11th century.
Ermou now enjoys the status of precinct and the fashion conscious flock there to buy or browse, shoes and jewellery, fashions and materials, all mingling together in what is now a quiet street where one may amble across from one side or another, only the occasional minibus (very convenient and cheap) to break the flow.